About
Voices for Healthy Kids and The Food Law and Policy Clinic at Harvard Law School will co-host a two-session Policy Summit for Policymakers interested in reducing health disparities and improving equity. This Summit will feature experts who will cover various aspects of sugary drinks tax policy. Attendees will learn the breadth of resources and supports available to champion these efforts to reduce health disparities and improve equity.
Agenda for Session 2
May 10, 2021, Noon – 1:30 p.m. CT
Welcome and Session Overview with Emily Broad Leib, Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic
Dream Team for Implementation with Jake Zychick, American Heart Association - Philadelphia, and Lizzie Velten, American Heart Association - Bay Area
Benefits and Importance of Community Advisory Boards with Hannah Hill, City of Seattle, and Elizabeth Crowne, Boulder Health Equity Advisory Committee
Legal Challenges with Marcel Pratt, former City Solicitor for Philadelphia
Final Questions and Closing with Claudia Goytia, Policy Engagement Manager, Voices for Healthy Kids
Register for Policy Summit for Policymakers: Session Two.
Meet the Speakers
Emily Broad Leib: Emily Broad Leib is Clinical Professor of Law, Faculty Director of the Harvard Law School Food Law and Policy Clinic, and Deputy Director of the Harvard Law School Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation. In 2011, Professor Broad Leib founded the first law school clinic in the United States devoted to identifying legal and policy solutions to address the health, economic, and environmental challenges facing our food system.
Her work has been covered in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, The Guardian, TIME, Politico, the Washington Post, CBS This Morning, CNN, The Today Show, and MSNBC. She was named by Fortune and Food & Wine to their list of 2016's Most Innovative Women in Food and Drink.
Professor Broad Leib was Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Board of Trustees for the Academy of Food Law and Policy from 2014-2019. She is now the faculty supervisor for the Harvard Mississippi Delta Project and Harvard Food Law Society, and supervisor of the National Food Law Student Network. She has published scholarly articles in the California Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Harvard Law & Policy Review, the Food & Drug Law Journal, and the Journal of Food Law & Policy, among others. Professor Broad Leib received her B.A. in American History from Columbia University and her J.D. from Harvard Law School, cum laude. She is a licensed member of the bar of the State of New York.
Jacob Zychick: Jacob Zychick is a Community Advocacy Director with the American Heart Association (AHA) focused on addressing health equity in southeast Pennsylvania. Before joining the AHA in 2018, Jacob worked at a community-based nonprofit in New Jersey focused on improving educational outcomes. Jacob Zychick received his Bachelor’s Degree from Fairleigh Dickinson University-Florham.
Lizzie Velten: Lizzie Velten is the Senior Director of Community Impact focusing of policy and systems change for the American Heart Association, Bay Area. She has a B.A. from Pomona College and a Master of Public Health from U.C. Berkeley with a specialty in Nutrition. In her public health policy career, she has developed expertise in coalition building, media advocacy, lobbying and strategic research. Lizzie has advocated for state-level soda taxes, healthy vending standards, sugar-sweetened beverage warning labels, and funding for prediabetes interventions. On the local policy front, she has worked on soda tax implementation, healthy default drinks in kids’ meals, and the tobacco end game. She is currently the co-chair of the Shape Up San Francisco collective impact coalition that has helped drive government accountability for the SF soda tax and advocated for the City budget to honor the recommendations of the tax’s Advisory Committee.
Hannah Hill: Hannah Hill is a Food Policy Advisor at the City of Seattle’s Office of Sustainability & Environment (OSE) and is dedicated to developing and implementing citywide policies and programs that create a more equitable, sustainable, and carbon neutral food system. In this role, she serves as a strategic advisor to OSE’s Director and the Mayor on a range of policies and strategic planning efforts. Hannah also serves as the staff liaison for the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board, a group responsible for developing recommendations to the Mayor and City Council on food access and early learning programs and initiatives supported by tax revenue.
Hannah studied public administration at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and outside of work loves spending time with her family (especially her two young children), running, and enjoying the beautiful outdoor spaces of the Pacific Northwest.
Elizabeth Crowe: Elizabeth Crowe is the Human Services Investments Manager for the City of Boulder. Drawing on decades of non-profit organizing and community grantmaking experiences, she now manages three of the city Housing and Human Services Department funding programs: the Health Equity Fund, Human Services Fund, and Substance Education and Awareness (SEA) Fund. She also is one of the city’s Racial Equity trainers. Since March 2020 Elizabeth has served on various additional city COVID response and recovery leadership teams.
Prior to working at the City, Elizabeth worked as a non-profit environmental health and justice organizer at the local, state, national and international levels. While serving as Director of the Kentucky Environmental Foundation and Co-Director of Coming Clean, she advocated for and helped win safe clean-up of chemical weapons and other military toxics; transition from coal-burning to clean energy; toxic-free foods and products; chemical safety at refineries and chemical manufacturing facilities; and other clean air and water quality issues.
Currently, Elizabeth is a volunteer Co-President of the League of Women Voters of Boulder County; an active Giving Project member alum with the Chinook Fund; and occasional volunteer with Motus Theater and other social justice organizations. She lives in the mountain foothills of Boulder County with her partner and two dogs. Her daughter lives in Denver.
Marcel S. Pratt: Marcel S. Pratt represents clients in high-stakes litigation and investigations and serves as the Managing Partner of the firm's Philadelphia office. He is the immediate past City Solicitor of Philadelphia, where he was the City's highest-ranking lawyer and leader of its 330-member Law Department, which represented the city in all litigation, transactional, regulatory, social services, and legislative matters. In that role, Marcel acted as general counsel to the Mayor, City Council, and all city departments, commissions, and agencies and personally represented the City in highly publicized appellate and trial court matters.
Marcel has extensive litigation experience, both in private practice and from his tenure as City Solicitor. As Solicitor, he personally litigated several matters with national or regional implications in federal and state court, including First Amendment and public health matters. His experience also included defending the Philadelphia Beverage Tax in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, defending the City's antidiscrimination policies in the U.S. Supreme Court, and fighting challenges to the election process during the 2020 Presidential election. He was cocounsel at trial in the City's successful suit against the federal government for withholding criminal justice funding based on so-called “sanctuary city” policies. Marcel expanded Philadelphia's affirmative litigation practice by filing antitrust, fair housing, constitutional, and public nuisance litigation, recovering millions of dollars for the City. He also represented the City in white-collar and regulatory investigations.
Marcel served as the Philadelphia's top legal advisor in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He devised the novel legal framework for the city's COVID-19 mitigation measures and approved the legality of every emergency order issued by the Mayor and Health Commissioner.
Marcel was the youngest person in Philadelphia's history to be appointed and confirmed as City Solicitor.